Passport Expiry Calculator
There is no universal passport validity rule. Some destinations measure from your entry date, some from your departure date, and the number of months varies. DAYOZA uses the destination's actual requirement — or tells you plainly when it has not verified one.
Requirements are per destination. DAYOZA only shows a verdict where it has verified the rule.
Needed when the destination measures validity from your departure date.
Source: Regulation (EU) 2016/399 (Schengen Borders Code), Article 6(opens in a new tab)
Last verified:
Why there is no default here
"Six months beyond entry" is a common requirement but not a universal one. Destinations differ on both the number of months and the date they measure from, so DAYOZA never applies a default rule to a destination it has not verified.
How passport validity rules work
There is no single worldwide rule. What varies is not only how much validity is demanded but the date it is measured from, and getting the second part wrong is what puts people at a check-in desk with a passport that is technically valid and practically useless.
The amount of validity varies
Six months is the most common requirement, but the Schengen area asks for three months and some destinations ask for nothing beyond the dates of the trip.
The date it is measured from varies
Some countries measure from the day you enter, others from the day you intend to leave. The Schengen rule measures three months beyond your intended departure from the territory of the member states.
Age of the passport can matter separately
The Schengen Borders Code also requires the document to have been issued within the previous ten years. That is a separate test from the expiry date, and a passport can pass one and fail the other.
A worked example
Your passport expires on 1 March 2027 and you plan to leave the Schengen area on 20 December 2026. Three months after 20 December is 20 March 2027 — later than your passport expires — so you do not meet the requirement, even though the passport is valid for the whole trip and for two months afterwards. That gap is the one airlines catch at the gate.
Where people get this wrong
Treating six months as 180 days
They are not the same. Six calendar months from 31 August is 28 February; 180 days from 31 August is 27 February. The rules are written in months, and a day either side of a deadline is the whole argument.
Measuring from the wrong end of the trip
A rule measured from your departure date needs more validity than the same rule measured from your arrival — by the whole length of your stay.
Forgetting the ten-year issue rule
Some countries used to add unused months from an old passport onto a new one, which can leave a document that expires in the future but was issued more than ten years ago. The Schengen Borders Code refuses it.
Assuming the airline will not check
Carriers are liable for returning passengers who are refused entry, so they check validity at the gate and apply the stricter reading when in doubt.
Common questions
Does six months of validity mean 180 days?
No. It means six calendar months, which is between 181 and 184 days depending on which months they are. Counting 180 days can put you a few days short of a requirement written in months.
Is the validity measured from my arrival or my departure?
It depends on the destination, and it is the detail most often got wrong. The Schengen requirement is three months beyond your intended departure from the member states, so the length of your stay is part of the calculation.
What is the ten-year rule?
Article 6(1)(a) of the Schengen Borders Code requires a travel document issued within the previous ten years. It is checked separately from the expiry date, so a passport with valid dates can still be refused for being too old.
What if my passport expires while I am abroad?
You will normally be refused boarding before that becomes possible, because the outbound carrier checks validity against your return. Renewing before you travel is the only reliable answer.
Does DAYOZA know the rule for every country?
No, and it says so rather than guessing. Where a requirement has been verified against an official source, the page shows the source and the date it was checked. Where it has not, the tool tells you plainly instead of inventing a number.
Further reading
Longer explanations of the rules this page applies.
Next steps
The questions travellers usually ask after this one.
- Visa Stay CalculatorWork out the exact date your permission to stay runs out, from the allowance your visa or entry actually grants.
- Schengen 90/180 CalculatorWork out how many of your 90 days you have used in the rolling 180-day window, and whether a planned trip stays within it.
- Date Difference CalculatorFind the days, weeks, months and years between any two dates — in either direction.
Countries this tool applies to
Rules, sources and last-verified dates for each.